The server room of the Nest was a cold place, a cathedral of data. The whirring of cooling fans from dozens of servers created a constant white noise. Rows of blue and green LED lights blinked in an incomprehensible rhythm, reflecting off Wraith's focused face.
She sat there, in her kingdom, but she didn't feel like a queen. She felt like someone walking through a minefield.
"Alright," she said to Kael and Gryphon, who were standing behind her. "I've created a sandbox. A virtual environment completely isolated from the Nest's main systems. Everything we do in here will leave no trace. I'm going to open both gifts here: Hunnigan's data block and Oracle's 'decryption key'."
She took a deep breath, like a diver about to plunge into the deep sea. "First, let's see what Oracle's 'gift' has in store."
Her fingers flew across the keyboard. On the main screen, a virtual window appeared, and the "decryption key" was opened within it. Lines of code began to scroll.
"Just as I suspected," Wraith murmured after a few seconds. "It's not a key. It's a Trojan horse. A very sophisticated one. It's designed to look like a security upgrade, but it would actually create a backdoor, giving the sender full administrative access to our systems. It would also quietly copy and transmit all of our data."
"Oracle... she really wants to wipe us out," Gryphon said, his voice thick with anger.
"Not necessarily," Wraith shook her head, her eyes never leaving the screen. "This Trojan is too... clinical. Too efficient. It has no style. It's more like it was generated by an AI than a human hacker. Anyway, we have it in its cage now. I can analyze it later. Now for the main prize."
She closed the Trojan window and opened another. The massive data block Gryphon had retrieved from Hunnigan's server.
"First firewall is BSAA standard. Delta-level," she said. "Child's play."
She typed a few lines of code. The firewall collapsed. Thousands of files appeared.
It took them nearly two hours to sift through the first layer of data. It was a cold look into Ingrid Hunnigan's war machine.
Everything was there. Weapon shipment schedules. Falsified financial reports to cover up black funds. The files of MLF members chosen for the Plagas experiments, with cold notes like "Subject 17: Failure. Cardiac arrest post-integration. Recommend termination."
They saw detailed plans for the deployment of the Hunter Gamma-II army, attack plans against rival corporations and weak governments.
"She was a monster," Rook said, having joined them after making sure Viper was stable.
"She was a businesswoman," Gryphon corrected, his tone bitter. "This isn't madness. This is a business plan. She was building a private army to sell to the highest bidder, under the guise of a legitimate security firm."
"But something's not right," Kael spoke up, looking at the financial reports. "The money is too big. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Hunnigan was a BSAA Major. No matter how corrupt, she couldn't have secured this kind of funding. Someone was backing her. An investor."
"The Broker," Wraith said. "But there's no name here. All payments are routed through dozens of shell companies and untraceable crypto accounts."
They had seemingly hit a dead end. Hunnigan was just a branch manager. The real CEO was still a ghost.
"Wait a minute," Wraith said suddenly. She pointed to a harmless-looking file named "MINUTES_Q3_SHAREHOLDERS.doc". "This file... it has a second layer of encryption. Not BSAA standard. Something else. Much stronger."
"Can you break it?" Gryphon asked.
"Not with brute force," Wraith replied. "But maybe with cunning." She started analyzing the Trojan Oracle had sent. "Whatever created this Trojan... it's powerful. I might be able to extract part of its algorithm and use it against this encryption. Fight fire with fire."
She set to work. For nearly an hour, the only sounds in the room were the clicking of keys and the whir of server fans. Kael, Gryphon, and the others could only watch, feeling helpless in a battle they didn't understand.
Then, a soft "click" came from Wraith's computer.
"I'm in," she breathed.
The file opened. It wasn't a text document. It was an organizational chart.
At the very top was a name: "PROMETHEUS COUNCIL".
Below that name were twelve boxes, all connected. Most were blank, filled only with coded symbols. But three of them contained information.
One box read "INGRID HUNNIGAN - Head of Security & Enforcement".
Another read "KANTE - Head of Field Product Development".
And the third... it had no name. Just the logo of a corporation. Tricell.
Silence filled the room. Tricell. The pharmaceutical giant that had once been Umbrella's main competitor.
"The Broker isn't one person," Kael said, finally understanding. "It's a board of directors. A shadow coalition of some of the most powerful people in the world."
They weren't fighting a terrorist. They were fighting a shadow government.
Kael felt a chill. This was so much bigger than he had imagined. But there was still one piece that didn't fit. Oracle's call.
"Wraith," he said. "Do me a favor. Pull up the audio recording of Gryphon's call with Oracle. Run a spectral analysis on it. Specifically, the static."
"What for?"
"I don't know," Kael admitted. "It's just a feeling. Something was off about that static."
Wraith, though skeptical, complied. She displayed two soundwaves on the screen. One was from the recording. The other was a random data sample from Hunnigan's server.
"I'll run a cross-comparison program," she said. "Look for any similarities in the noise patterns. This could take..."
She didn't finish her sentence. The program returned a result. A beep sounded.
98.7% PATTERN MATCH DETECTED
"That's impossible," Wraith was stunned.
"A match with what?" Gryphon asked.
"The static in our call," Wraith explained, her eyes wide. "It wasn't random noise. It was a hidden data signature. And it's a perfect match for the signature of... the cooling systems for the servers housing the Aurum Serum data."
The room went silent.
"In other words," Kael said slowly. "Whoever called us, posing as Oracle... they made that call from inside the lab in the Congo."
"No," Wraith shook her head. "Not just that. This signature isn't just noise. It's the byproduct of a technology. A proprietary audio compression and encryption technology."
She quickly accessed an external database. "Every technology leaves a trail. Patents, research papers..."
She typed in a few keywords. "Audio encryption technology... Tricell... Patent number 77B-Alpha..."
A file appeared on the screen.
"This technology was developed by a Tricell subsidiary specializing in secure military communications. The head of that project was..."
She clicked on a name. The person's profile appeared, complete with a photograph.
A man in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, thin-rimmed glasses, and a kind-looking smile. The face of an academic, a scientist.
Jotun, who had been silent the entire time, suddenly stepped forward, staring at the screen.
"I know this man," he said, his voice full of disbelief.
"You know him?" Gryphon asked.
"Yes," Jotun replied. "Before Hummingbird, I worked for a private security detail. We once provided security for a scientific conference in Geneva. He was the keynote speaker."
Jotun looked at the team, and in the giant's eyes, for the first time, Kael saw true fear.
"His name is Dr. Aris Thorne. A world-leading expert in biochemistry and neurology. And one of the BSAA's highest-level senior advisors."